


For Whom the Bell Tolls

by Dangereuse



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Abhorsen Bilbo, Crossover with the Abhorsen Trilogy, Gandalf the Free Magic Being, M/M, The Hobbits have too much sense for Middle Earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25414321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dangereuse/pseuds/Dangereuse
Summary: Gandalf, the Free Magic Being, solicits the help of Bilbo, Abhorsen of the Shire, for the Journey.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

“Azog,” Thorin whispered. “I thought I killed him.”

Bilbo swung his head towards the Lich, reeking of Death and Free Magic. He tossed his head back, side to side. “Er, I rather think you did.” He paused, tried not to shiver from the onslaught of Death, of corrupted magick. “Well, that’s what happens with shoddy burial practices, I suppose,” he said, ever practical. He ran his hand down the bandolier on his chest, a subconscious count of his bells.

Thorin ignored him, or didn’t hear him, regardless. His face was pale, and the other dwarrow beside him passed him looks of terror, of concern, trying to gauge what they should do next.

Thorin dropped from his tree like a small boulder, hitting in a terribly dramatic crouched stance. He straightened, drawing Orchist in a sweep of Free Magic. It cleared the air for two or three breaths, giving Bilbo some free air from the stench of Death and necromancy.

The Lich strode forward, pale white flesh gleaming in the moonlight. “Thorin, son of Thrain!” It rasped, gleefully. “We meet again, to rebalance the scales!” It swung the grotesque sword embedded in the flesh of its severed left arm. Bilbo wanted to gag from the wrongness.

Thorin met the blow of that grotesque arm with Orcrist, turning to meet the dead Lich blade for blade. But Thorin was outmatched against that much foul magick, swamped by the sick power from that dead Thing, and their duel that followed was brief, but awful. Thorin was Alive, in a way that dread orc couldn’t manage, and his flesh was weak against its foul power.

The dwarrow quivered in their perches, and Bilbo’s body rang with certainty. He was Abhorsen. The Dead held no purchase here.

“Well, confusticate that,” Bilbo said and he drew Sting from its sheath. The Charter Marks he’d laid into the base of the blade to name it burned with a sun’s intensity _._

_The Eldar of Gondolin Forged Me, the Hobbits of the Shire Marked Me, and the Abhorsen Wields Me so that No Dead Shall Walk in Life._

Sting cleaved through Dead flesh like butter, the spirit inside recoiling and dropping back behind the Veil in pain and surprise, and then Bilbo was before the Lich, Azog, and Bilbo could smell the sick, sweet rankness of rotten flesh.

Azog was nearly waxy in his appearance, like preserved lard; all great white flesh with great white eyes filmed over with Death. Bilbo looked him up, down, and shoved Sting into its sheath with a solid thunk. His hands sprung to his bandolier, and his fingers plucked the bells free from their casings.

Bilbo drew Kibeth with his left, perhaps the trickiest and most mischievous of bells, and so Bilbo cradled her for a half second while her clapper clanged and bid his feet to do a sprightly Hobbiton jig where he stood before Thorin’s unmoving body. Saraneth he drew in his right, and the big heavy bell fell into his hand with more weight than Sting, despite being less than an eighth of the metal.

He swung Saraneth with the swift jerk of his wrist, and clapper tolled so broad and so loud in the clearing that the clang of swords and jeers of orcs were muffled before his voice. Kibeth he brought above his head, tolling the jaunty impish jangle of her in a half-moon under the sky.

“Azog! Defiler! You have no welcome here in Life!” Bilbo shouted. “For Dead you are and Dead you shall remain! Walk no more your accursed path!”

Suddenly there was a Will to oppose his own, and it burned with the corrosive gleam of Free Magic. Bilbo felt the small pops of Lesser Dead around him dropping back beyond the Veil into the waters of Death, saw in the corner of his eye some of the orcs keel over, watched as some of the wargs suddenly collapsed, dead weight on dead legs.

“What kind of necromancer are you?” hissed Azog, through gritted teeth, and Bilbo felt a consciousness nearly three times as old as his own push back against him, but he had the Bells and their Voices were his own. He pushed, and he could feel the housing of Azog’s dead flesh crumple beneath his will.

“I am no necromancer.” Bilbo returned, and he was no longer shouting, but he didn’t have to, his voice carrying like Saraneth’s Voice. “Pass beyond the Veil!“

Then Azog opened his mouth, far greater than any living being could ever manage, a great blackness exposed and a furious hateful roar broke from Azog’s Dead throat, a noise only magic could make, and Kibeth faltered in his hand and Bilbo’s legs jerked back a step until he nearly tripped over Thorin on the ground behind him.

Quickly, Bilbo swung Kibeth back around and caught her by the clapper and shoved her roughly in his bandolier, before she could prove more traitor to him. He forced his will doubly hard into Saraneth. “Walk no more the paths of Life!”

Azog fell to one knee, snarled, and then opened his over-wide maw once more. The sound of a great horn escaped his chest using his mouth the flute of the gramophones Bilbo had only seen in Hobbiton.

Bilbo went cold, cold as if he’d been pulled into Death. He knew immediately that this sound had not come from the Lich himself, that he’d drawn on some greater, darker power. Bilbo knew with certainty that this power was beyond his ability to fight. This time he did fall, tumbling down right atop Thorin and his discarded Oakenshield. Thorin’s chest was rattling, struggling even worse against the power of that terrible Horn and Bilbo laid a hand over him and pressed the small Charter mark for healing and ease to his chest. Thorin’s breath didn’t even out, so caught under the crushing weight of sound, so close to Despair, and Bilbo instead cupped his free hand and drew the large Charter mark for Hope and pressed it one-handed to his flesh. The mark burned through him, caught in his throat, and made his hand shake from it’s power.

The Horn was still sounding, the waves of it crushing, forcing the delicate bones of Bilbo’s head to shake. He ached under the weight of that sound, and Bilbo wished his hands to be free of bells so he could hold them over his ears.

Saraneth shattered.

Bilbo dropped the bell’s handle in surprise, staring at the broken remnants of it with betrayed disbelief. His ears were ringing.

Azog grew in height, the expenditure of its master’s power to channel that Horn turning its body even more unnatural. Its eyes were burning pits of tar. 

“I will devour you, little necromancer, and then that worthless dwarf!” It hissed, reaching out for Bilbo with stretching elastic hands.

Bilbo stared in horror at the lard pale expanse of its hands, waiting to be seized, devoured. He didn’t notice as the Eagle swept by, plucking Thorin, and then himself, from the maws of Death.

***

The Eagles dropped them on a small field of close shorn grass, and Bilbo could only watch with great sadness as the body of Thorin Oakenshield gave one last gleam of golden Life, and came to Rest. His life sped out of him with the breath of his chest, and Bilbo started crying before his body came to a full stop.

The dwarrow swarmed around him the second the Eagle laid him to rest, and for once, Gandalf was among their number, as flustered as the rest. Bilbo stood, tears wet on his cheeks. He knew the conclusion they would reach. Oin reached first, and threw poor Fílí akimbo with his arm. Oin reached for a pulse, first at His Majesty’s wrist, then throat. Gandalf flitted at Oin’s side, having trouble holding his form. Oin scrabbled at Thorin’s bloodsoaked armor, until he had an unimpeded view of his chest. His head fell.

“He’s dead,” Oin, said. “His Majesty is dead.” He bowed his head, and his whole face creased with grief.

“Bilbo!” Gandalf cried, rearing back from Thorin’s body. “Bilbo!” He cried. His Free Magic construct of a body stretched and reformed, anxious.

Bilbo wrung his hands where he was waiting behind the massed dwarrow. He shook his head. “He has passed beyond the Veil, Gandalf.”

“It is not his _time_ ,” Gandalf hissed. He strode forward, staff seeming to spark, Free Magic pouring off of him. For a second his corporeality stretching and swaying.

“It’s not _done_!” Bilbo cried, but he stepped forward anyway, his wringing hands drifting closer to his bell bandolier. _Thorin_ , his soul cried. _Thorin_!

“I know you have done such before, my dear boy!”

“In the Shire, with a faunt’s pet rabbit, perhaps, or a babe not yet christened under the charter! But really _, here_ , with that foul Lich so close and—.” Bilbo stepped forward, until his bare hobbit feet met the soft fur of Thorin’s cloak.

Gandalf gave him a dry, unimpressed look.

“Oh, bother and confusticate you Gandalf! Only if he is not beyond the First Gate!”

Bilbo froze.

Literally froze, a wave of cold washing out from his body. Frost curled in his hair and along the eyelashes of his still-open eyes.

Bilbo stepped through the Veil and took a moment to straighten his waistcoat and _listen_. There was no gap in the sound of the waterfall, and Bilbo took a bold step forward. The water was around his knees, but Bilbo knew this path, knew it well, and he did not even have to devote conscious thought to counting out his steps, avoiding those deep spots that would have him up to his waist, or even his chest. Bilbo did not wish to fight the current. He made quick time, sacrificing a little of his quiet as he did, because the perils of bringing Thorin back from beyond the First Gate were real, and despite what he had said to Gandalf, he didn’t know if his heart would allow him to stop then.

It was quiet, too quiet, the stirrings of the Lesser Dead were too soft, and Bilbo knew that there was something here that they were deeply afraid of. He had no hope that it was himself, this far from the Shire, and he kept his eyes peeled for a flash of color in the stream before him.

There was a flash of Durin blue in the current, just ahead, and then Bilbo noticed a black string trailing in the current afore him.

Leading right out of his pocket. The lower one, the one still with that tenaciously clinging button.

The one holding that perfectly formed, golden ring Bilbo had found gleaming in the goblin tunnels, the one that nearly seemed to ring at some frequency just lower than a hobbit ear could detect. Bilbo came to an abrupt halt, nearly stumbling. And then he very gently touched the backs of his pinky and fourth finger to the string, so light it couldn’t send any vibrations up the string. 

The touch ached, straight up to his shoulder and across his chest, and Bilbo was seized immediately with the urge to tug on the string, like his dreadful second cousin Laila summoning a poor maid with a bell on a pull.

Bilbo jerked his hand away, careful, before he could follow through with the urge. He shook himself, and redoubled his pace, damning himself to see how far that Durin blue coat had run in the current during his distraction.

That was a problem for another time, Bilbo thought desperately, but still he watched the string from the corner of his eye, even as he plunged his wrists into the icy water and drew Thorin from the current.

The water fought him, viciously, and still Bilbo pulled until his lower back ached, and Thorin’s face broke the water, his silver and soot black hair sprawled across his cheek and nose. Bilbo cleared the hair with a quick brush of his hand, checking the temperature of Thorin’s skin.

Cold, too cold, but not as cold as the water coursing around Bilbo’s legs and soaking into his overcoat from Thorin’s own clothes, and Bilbo nearly sighed in relief.

The physics from beyond the Veil were different, else Bilbo likely could not have hauled Thorin’s soul as he did, with Thorin clutched with one arm across his chest, and the other hand free to linger fretfully around the Bells. In Death there is no force but the pull of the current of its waters or, beyond the Ninth Gate, the Stars of the Valar.

It was taxing nonetheless, the waters of Death sucking at Bilbo’s shins and dragging extra fiercely against Thorin’s legs and booted feet.

Bilbo was four steps from the Veil when he heard the first of the barest echoes of the horn, the same noise that had torn itself from Azog’s chest in that clearing, the same sound that had shattered Saraneth. It was muted here, resounding as if from as if from far away and a little tired, as if it couldn’t quite generate the same force without Azog’s physical form there to directly outpour it. Bilbo’s heart thudded as he heard it, and the remaining Bells inside his bandolier quivered against it. He took a deep breath, considered, and his hand flew to his chest, hoping he was not about to lose another bell.

Bilbo drew Dyrim with one hand, quick as he could, cast the doubt aside, for improper wielding of the bells would kill him faster than that lich, and rang it in a short, curt clack. It was almost discordant for that little bell, coming against that Horn’s great resonance, but it worked. The sound of the Horn was silenced around him, stilled like an errant gossip’s tongue, before Azog could possibly use it to find them.

He flipped the bell, practiced, catching it by the clapper before it could ring for itself and undo the work he’d just done, even as he dragged Thorin past the Veil, from Death into Life.

“Mahal’s sweaty nutsack!” Bilbo heard Bofur exclaim as Thorin jerked upwards, snapping up at the waist with a huge gasp of breath.

“Your ribs!” Oin cried, even as Thorin winced and clutched at his torso and moderated his breathing to tiny, even breaths.

Bilbo slipped Dyrim, appeared in his empty and still-quite frozen hand, back into his bandolier. Then he broke the icicle off his nose with a practiced flick, and turned to Gandalf, still chuffed and irritated. He brushed the frost off himself with curt movements.

“Well,” he drawled. “I do hope you know what you were meaning, when you said it was not his time. Returned, as well as can be hoped, though he shall never brown beneath the sun again.”

Gandalf seemed to breathe out, before he stood and twitched the folds of his ratty grey robe around him. He rested his hand on Bilbo’s shoulder and clapped him, once. He didn’t say anything, and Bilbo was not reassured as he stepped behind them to speak to the Eagles, who were staring, heads and beaks cocked. Bilbo ducked away, under the swarm of Oin, Dwalin, Fili and Kili who pressed disbelieving hands to Thorin’s arms and hands, and whispered rough words in Khuzdul.

Nori was staring at Bilbo, his fingers poised at his side in the symbol even Bilbo in the Shire knew was meant to ward off the evil eye. Bilbo forced himself to meet his eyes, and Nori dropped his hand, paused, and bowed his head low.

Thorin had been helped to his feet, and he was standing there, under his own power, and Bilbo was surprised at how sharp the satisfaction was to see him full of his own agency and not cold and limp and soaked in the grey waters of death. He made his way over to Bilbo, with even yet slow steps.

“I felt a dreadful cold, and could hear the voices of my fathers.” Thorin spoke, low and rough. Then his voice stumbled. “My brother.”

Bilbo rubbed under his eye, “Er, I imagine you did, yes.” He tried not to think of the voice of his mother, tugging at his sleeves and begging for him to rise from the cold grey water when he met that wight in the month after her death, the voices of the Abhorsens-Past forcing him to rise, to live as he had no heir.

“I scoffed, in Bag End, and asked you had you ever but seen the sun, you were so pale. I sneered when you pushed strange hobbitish marks on that scavenged elven knife, and was confused and alarmed when you reached instead for your Bells. I did not understand when you rung those trolls and half my company to sleep. But you have stood before me and my oldest enemy with those Bells, and have pulled my soul from the grasp of death itself, and I no longer ask why Gandalf insisted so hard on a burglar from the Shire!”

He enfolded Bilbo into his arms.


	2. Extras!!!!

Bilbo hesitated a long moment. Fire and water were the natural enemy of the Dead, and _incineration_ didn’t quite seem quite _on_. For a Dead thing.

“Is the dragon…er…Dead?” Bilbo asked, cautiously.

Thorin reared back from him, and then looked at his company like Bilbo was a simpleton. Finally, from the giant bald dwarf who’d obliterated his cookie jar: “Nae, of course not.”

Bilbo nodded very seriously, leaned back in his chair and then turned to Gandalf. “Well what then, exactly, is it that you expect _me_ to do?”

Gandalf sighed.


	3. Extras!!!!2

“Well, do something!” Fili and Kili nearly hissed in stereo, not quite able to hide that edge of ‘proud of oneself for deferring blame’.

“Well, bother,” he said, listening to the distressed sounds of Myrtle. He took a deep breath. Trolls.

“Have you a plan?” Fili and Kili pushed. 

“Well, I can’t very well stuff a troll in a crystal vial, can I?” Bilbo snapped, and he drew Ranna with more anger than he should, and she tried to chime without him in his hand.

***

Bilbo rapped his knuckles against the troll’s cheek, and felt the echoes of Gandalf’s Free Magic ping up his arm. It tingled under his skin like one of Gandalf’s rockets might shimmer against the sky. “I suppose stone is as good a binding as any,” he said, but his voice was slightly doubtful.

Gandalf snorted. “Stone served to bind the Balrog under Mount Gundabad. I’m sure it will serve to bind three trolls.”

Bilbo prodded the troll statue one more time and then shrugged. “Well thank you, Gandalf, for a timely intervention in any case.”

“There should be a troll hoard around here,” Gloin said, excited. He’d recovered admirably.

“Bilbo?” Gandalf inquired, and Bilbo sighed. He pointed. He could feel the unburied bodies in the cave, resentful from their lack of proper burial.


	4. Extras!!!!3

Gandalf has long been a friend to the Shire, ever since he’d shown up one day hundreds of years ago and stolen a fruit pie out of the window in the Great Smials, and Bandobras Took took great offense at his wife’s purloined cooking and tried to bind Gandalf to the earth with a rowan wand and a copper ingot.

It was an honest mistake, since when Free Magic Constructs usually started mucking about, they started eating people and burning things, but when the rowan wand failed and Bandobras instead reached for his bells, Gandalf simply put up his hands and apologized for nicking the pie.

They got to talking, Gandalf allowed Bandobras to ring Saraneth and feel out his edges, and it was determined that Gandalf was a Free Magic Being, yes, but that he wasn’t of the eating people type. Generally, a force for good, sometimes just a force for good old tomfoolery and mischief, hence the pie thievery and the subsequent fireworks, but those both probably endeared him to the hobbits then pure respectability ever could.

But Gandalf had a touch of prophecy to him, since time is hardly linear to such beings of pure magic, and it gave him just the barest inkling of where he should be and who he should be there with, and every now and then he would show up to coerce one of the hobbits out of the Shire.

***

“Hobbits are different from elves and wizards,” Bilbo tried, picking out his words carefully. “Free Magic, like the Eldar use, like Gandalf is, is powerful indeed, but always harnessed by the application of will. Say for instance, that you are being threatened, and you begin to use Free Magic to help yourself. Perhaps you will yourself to be _Safe_ , for it is best to keep the urging of raw will to the smallest and most base instincts, so one does not get lost in your own intricacies and get distracted, lose track of the Will, letting the magic backlash or get lost. Now, if you will safety, you might obliterate your enemy, or transport yourself somewhere else, or create a barrier between you and danger, or conjure a sword to your hand. Only beings with great vast minds of precision and focus and tremendous Will are able to do workings of any complexity at all by themselves, and these magics are beautiful and terrible all at once.

“Otherwise, you require a Free Magic Creature or Construct, to which these complexities come naturally, to do a working for you. However, this requires even more Will, to essentially subjugate the Creature to do your bidding. And naturally, no being enjoys subjugation! It is a perpetual fight of your Will against their freedom, and the Creature will most likely take your life in forfeit when you lose.”

Bilbo smiled up at Thorin. “But that is not the hobbit way. All this effort to get anything done, and if a person does not have sufficient raw will and rational thinking in a crisis to channel a sufficient defense than they should become wight food? I think not! So the hobbits have weaved together the Charter, a sea of marks of magic bound to their names and meanings and uses. They require Will, still, to use, but it is not the same struggle and rush. A young or unfocused hobbit may draw upon lesser marks and not fear backlash. The Eldar think we are quite mad of course, as this is not how it is done in Valinor, but I think perhaps they will come across to our way of thinking. Gandalf has come to appreciate our ways.”

Gandalf huffed. “Perhaps if the young faunts will stop trying to shove me in crystal bottles.”

Bilbo laughed. “And why would I forbid a practice that both gives a dear friend no great amusement and teaches the more intractable faunts what exactly happens when they try to trap creatures beyond their ken in bottles?”


	5. Extras!!!!4

Staring at the ring, that followed him into Death, Bilbo stumbled upon an idea.

***

Finally Bilbo held his last weaving in his hands. It was made from beautifully soft leather donated from Beorn, and embroidered with gorgeous embroidery silks stolen from Thranduil’s stores. The Marks nearly gleamed in the firelight, and Bilbo was very proud of the tightness of his stitches and the low reverberating thrum of the Charter in every one.

He addressed his dwarves. “Is there one among you that calls his craft smithing? Preferably something with gold, or silver, although iron would do, I suppose.”

The dwarves all froze, looking at him as if he had been somewhat rude, and Bilbo forced himself to continue. This was too important to be deterred by being respectable.

“It’s only I would ask your help. It’s for Smaug.” The dwarves seemed to murmur amongst themselves. Finally, Kili looked to his uncle, for permission, then puffed up his shoulders. “I am a Craftsman in the Silversmith guild. No finer work than you’ve ever seen!”

“Oh good!” Bilbo rushed to his side, and clasped him on the shoulder. He passed Kili a small bag, a heavy lump that sort of ground unpleasantly on the edges when he grasped it. It reeked of salt, and when he moved to open up its drawstring Bilbo batted his hands away. “Sleep with that tonight, and tomorrow at morning at first light I’ve arranged to borrow a forge.” Bilbo clasped him once more on the shoulder

“More hobbit magic, Master Baggins?” Thorin intonated.

“I think it’s about time we brought some good hobbit sensibility into the equation, yes.” Bilbo huffed, and straightened the remains of his waistcoat. “Good night.”

**Author's Note:**

> Well here’s this little fic. I’ve really struggled with it, because when I first sort of heard Hobbits in Middle Earth, I just goggled. Here are these tiny, sweet, peaceful people, coexisting at the same time as all this other shit on Middle Earth. Like, even if you suppose they are technologically and socially more advanced than the other beings, like I’ve seen supposed, they are still entirely peaceful and have sunk nothing into wartime technologies. They might have great sanitation and advanced farming techniques, and an abundance of technology for leisure and entertainment, but they are still liable to be invaded, no matter how clever they are. 
> 
> Then I looked at a map, and the Hobbits seem to be sandwiched between the Barrow Downs, which I’m given to understand are like mass graves from people of long past, where ghosty-wraithy creatures hang out and try and eat people, and a forest that is filled with killer trees, eldritch weirdos like Tom Bombadil and other strange creatures, are slightly adjacent to a route in which many elves (to go sail to their afterlife?) and dwarves (traveling between other dwarf settlements to the Blue Mountains) must travel, are not too far from a goblin/orc living space (see Fell Winter and also Bandobras inventing golf with a goblin head) but are completely reliant on the Rangers (an ever decreasing population!) for protection. It just doesn’t make sense that no one in these ever-warring cultures has wanted to subjugate them. So, I thought it would be cool if hobbits had some magic of their own, to keep others out. And then I thought, how to keep a bunch of ghosts (Barrow Downs) from eating hobbits, and I thought of the whistles along the Wall in Abhorsen. And then I was like, Abhorsen Bilbo! What if he binds Smaug like Mogget! And we have a little dragon/cat Smaugget lazing around the smials, totally fulfilled by being a cat asshole and being overfed fish by many generations of Abhorsen hobbits. Also Bilbo could make a HUGE difference in that horrible death scene I’ve decided to forget about. And I became super excited about that. 
> 
> But then I thought, Abhorsen hobbits would actually be quite overpowered in the world of Middle Earth. They have too much common sense, and seek too much functionality (so they can turn around and laze and eat 17 meals a day) in their society to have magic be like the elves have magic, where it is only used for Great Works and incurs a Terrible Cost and may, in fact, Doom Society. And it kind of defeats Tolkien’s point, which is that small acts of kindness are what makes a big difference, that people (Hobbits) who make small communal changes out of empathy for each other to be better together is what advances society instead of big heroes, and I lost the plot. Also I read too many recaps of the Journey, and am not quite clever enough to come up with a whole murder mystery on my own, so have this instead!


End file.
